The present invention relates to a dust-free garment used in, for example, clean rooms, and particularly relates to a dust-free garment with an air suction system.
With recent developments in electronics, medicine, brewing, etc., there are growing needs for the clean room which provides a clean air environment. For keeping the clean room at a predetermined degree of cleanliness, operators in it must wear a dust-free garment to prevent them from producing dust. For this purpose there have been proposed various dust-free garments in which the filtering effect of the garment cloth is enhanced by using highly close texture for it or by laminating it with a synthetic resin film. However, such garments do not provide sufficient dust-removing effect in view of the continuing need of a clean room having higher cleanliness. Further, the dust-free garment with a high filtering performance becomes uncomfortable since it makes the user sweaty due to a high ventilation resistance. In surgical operations, there is used a surgical gown having a sealed hood, from which air with dust is sucked into an elongated tube which is communicated to a suction pump installed in the room. This prior art garment is intended to suck expiration air of the user and does not sufficiently prevent dust from issuing from sleeve openings thereof.
Applications have studied the mechanism of producing dust in the dust-free garment and found that the force to expel dust from it to the outside is generated by the difference in pressure between the inside and outside thereof, and that contaminated air within the dust-free garment issues to its outside through garment openings such as the neck opening and sleeve openings even if the filtering performance of the garment cloth is enhanced. FIGS. 27(A) to 27(E) illustrate results of experiments in which pressure differences between the inside and outside of a conventional dust-free garment were determined in various states: the user standing under respiration (FIG. 27(A)); being seated with his arms moving vertically (FIG. 27(B)); repeating sitting and standing (FIG. 27(C)); bending and stretching his body (FIG. 27(D)); and stamping (FIG. 27(E)). It is believed that dust issues from the garment in positive pressure.